A rare public spat in the technology industry escalated on Tuesday when Google said it would block its video streaming application YouTube from two Amazon.com Inc devices and criticized the online retailer for not selling Google hardware.

[...] In a statement, Google said, "Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make (its) Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of (our sister company) Nest's latest products. "Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV," Google said. "We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon."

[...] Amazon said in a statement, "Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website." It said it hoped to resolve the issue with Google as soon as possible but customers could access YouTube through the internet - not an app - on the devices in the meantime.

I could have swornI could have sworn(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 07 2017, @02:59AM
(12 children)

I could have sworn that Google supported Net Neutrality. Now, here they are blocking people based on the devices they chose to spend their money on. And, I suspect that Trump and his administration will support that decision.

--PTSD - Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats

Re:I could have sworn(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:08AM

Re:I could have sworn(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @08:42PM

Hmm... as long as the Amazon devices can continue to access web sites, this isn't really violating net neutrality. Net Neutrality doesn't (shouldn't) have much to do at all with which apps can run here or there, or not. In this case, it's Google taking its YouTube app from Amazon's pretty walled garden as some sort of consequence for another issue.

Net Neutrality will be prepped for violation when Comcast starts making noises that it might have to block YouTube traffic because Comcast keeps asserting that Google does not do enough to police copyright violations in YouTube. And on behalf of all those content producers and copyright holders, it then seeks some sort of shakedown/reparations/compromise from Google.

What'll be interesting is if Comcast's Xfinity Mobile MVNO gets traction, and Comcast can then try to go onto users' phones and tablets and disable or remove apps it doesn't like today...

But at this point, it's all probably just trivial tomato vs tomato differences anyways.

Re:I could have sworn(Score: 3, Insightful) by arslan on Friday December 08 2017, @12:56AM

But the person can access the data.. with a different device - in fact on a general purpose device like a PC. There's lots of data on the net that are far less accessible..

They're blocking access to _small_ number of channels, proprietary channels at that, to that data that's all - and only because AWS did the same to them. Its a stretch to say that act in on itself is anti net-neutrality.

But yea, Google like any other mega-corp could careless about NN as long as it doesn't get in the way of profits.

Sigh..., do you remember the time when knowledgeable people, often the developers themselves, answered questions and supported their software in a meaningful way, and trolls sometimes were actually funny or interesting? I'm getting old...

Mmm... but proper old-school trolling is *hard*. Though it is glorious when you see a troll elegantly lead someone on a marry chase around their own arguments only to end up arguing for the opposite they originally were.

A pox on both their houses. A pox on both their houses. (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:21AM
(13 children)

"Amazon said in a statement, "Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website.""

That's some harsh, and apparently justified, criticism.

Coming from Amazon, it's also hilariously hypocritical.

I have an idea. How about these two giant anti-human organizations go to war?

They have plenty of money for weapons. I think we should encourage this. Get everyone else out of the way and let them fight until one is gone. Hopefully the other one will be too weakened to survive at that point as well. Win/win.

--"Grasp the essence, seize the root."

They ARE going to war.They ARE going to war.(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:24AM
(5 children)

Re:A pox on both their houses. Re:A pox on both their houses. (Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday December 07 2017, @04:21AM
(2 children)

Have you watched the movie War Inc [imdb.com]? That pretty much explores how the world would look if corporations did go to war and the like - though in that case, it seems that one corp was just being used to fight an entire war. Still hilariously macabre whilst accurate if you have worked in large multinationals.

...between this and Apple getting in a spat with Disney and blocking all Disney IP's from resolving on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads?

Since when does the manufacturer of a device have the reserved right to determine whose content I may and may not consume with it?

This isn't a net neutrality argument - net neutrality is about network operators prioritizing traffic on the wire. This is about device makers claiming they should have veto power over what networks their customers may connect to. Different, and probably a significantly worse threat.

>>> device makers claiming they should have veto power over what networks their customers may connect to.

Ummm, no, backwards. This is about a web site having veto power over what software is allowed to view it, and thereby blocking a category of hardware using particular software. And it's about customers who did nothing wrong and have no input to the situation suddenly having functionality stolen away from devices they bought and paid for. It's about all of the openness of the Internet being sliced into walled gardens.

The difference, if I understand the article, is that Google is pulling their own app from Amazon's devices. The Echo and Fire can still access YouTube through a standard web connection though. Google's not blocking traffic, they're just pulling their app.

This is more akin to Google releasing Maps features on Android ahead of the same functionality (if at all) on their iOS apps.

Re:What's the qualitative difference...(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 07 2017, @08:05AM

> Since when does the manufacturer of a device have the reserved right to determine whose content I may and may not consume with it?

Since it was manufactured? No, since it was designed. It's their product, they spec it.Noone forced you to buy it, don't give your talers to manufacturers that make products like this.(Which also applies to software, and also applies to "platforms", which are more appropriate to the story, as it's not the hardware manufacturer that's causing the stink this time.)

Lads, I like you both. I have Google Play Movies and Amazon Prime videos.

I have a Google Chromecast.I subscribe to Amazon Prime.

And I've always played both through the Chromecast. Admittedly a one-button solution would be nice rather than having to stream the tab from Chrome, but that's neither here nor there.

Fact is, I bought the Chromecast from Google because I couldn't buy it on Amazon. You could have shared in your rival's profit but you wanted to make it difficult for me, and you also allowed a lot of Chromecast-related spam to sit in its place to trick people.

And I subscribe to Amazon because there's no similar Google Play offering.

However, the bottom line is this: If you force me to choose, I will. Permanently. That means I won't "lose" my videos that I bought. I'll still demand that you use your resources to send them to me whenever I want them. But you won't see a penny more of my money. Whoever "loses", misses out on that money I'm currently spending. Then I'll give it to their direct rival instead.

So.. bicker if you like. One of you will lose, and you will both miss out over time as my confidence in purchasing via any such service erodes if you guys just keep falling out to this extent. I know precisely which one it is I would choose. I won't be damaged by it at all. But I'll spend nothing with the loser, and I'll spend less with the winner and any similar service going forward.

When you have an answer, give me a shout. Because I think if you look, the only answer is "both stop being petty and support each other's gear". That means you get a percentage of everything your rival sells, if you negotiate it right, which is never a bad thing.

The alternative - the separation that you're threatening - ends well for no-one. And with two big players losing out, it means that you could break that industry as a whole. Or certainly hurt as a result.

Amazon - stock the Google hardware at the same prices as every other retail store, allow a Chromecast button to be put on if viewed by a Chrome browser, etc.Google - you have support for the fire stick, right? And you'll let them have YouTube like everyone else?

Honestly, when you start talking to multi-billion dollar corporations like children, there's something drastically wrong with their negotiating skills or attitude to business.

Re:Bickering(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 07 2017, @05:58PM

So much this, but I have slowly been leaning toward the negative for both companies. The whole spiderman "with great power comes great responsibility" thing. Except, where corporations are concerned, all I ever see is "great power" and "government bail-out" or "Quarterly Financial". How about "giant corporation X to devote some previously unheard of sum/resources" to help the homeless, or something that would directly benefit society as a whole. You know other than the whole, I have lots of money, I like to roll in it, and "Oh, can you help train this H1B?", thanks.